


The Little Things

by Sheeana



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-03-23 11:24:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3766348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheeana/pseuds/Sheeana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Librarians-in-Training are there for each other after an adventure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Little Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kalisgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalisgirl/gifts).



> This is set sometime during S1. I hope you enjoy it!

"Rotate seven degrees, and then seven point four inches to the left…" Cassandra was mumbling, lost in all the lines and shapes swirling around her head. She reached out, tracing one of the lines that stretched out into the distance. She wondered if it ever ended.

"Hey," someone was saying. There was a snapping sound, skin-against-skin. Fingers in front of her face.

"… if the diameter of the circle is nine feet… then divide by…"

"Hey, Cassie, I'm talking to you," Jake said. It was Jake. She knew his voice, even when he was pleading with her. There was a warm weight on her back. Someone's hand. "We've been through this already. You gotta focus and snap out of it. Look at me."

The problem wasn't that she didn't _want_ to look at him. She liked looking at him, in a way she didn't really want to explore very deeply just yet. The problem was that she was so caught up in the shapes and the smells and the colors that she couldn't look away from them – like they were carrying her away, somewhere far away. She wasn't sure it was somewhere she wanted to go.

"Cassie, c'mon-"

There was something warm against her lips. She made a little surprised sound in her throat, then blinked a few times. The world blurred, and then started to crystallize into a clear picture around her. Grass. Trees. Green. Jake, further away than she would have thought he should be. Ezekiel, right in front of her. She leaned back against the hand still supporting her back.

"What was that for?" she heard Jake saying, complaining, distantly as if she was coming back from somewhere and hadn't quite made it yet.

"Well, it worked, didn't it?" Ezekiel replied.

"Can't just go around kissing people like that without warning anyone," Jake said.

Ezekiel raised his eyebrows. "Are you jealous?"

Jake scoffed. It sounded more derisive than normal. Cassandra glanced down at the hand that was still resting on her back, expecting it to be Ezekiel's, but it wasn't – Jake was still holding her up.

"It's okay," she said brightly, in case that helped. "I don't mind. It was… nice." 

"Oh, well if it was nice," Jake muttered. He slipped the stone disc they'd come to retrieve into his pocket.

"Admit it. You're jealous." Ezekiel was smirking. He was also cradling his wrist against his chest like it was hurt. She didn't remember seeing it happen, but she'd been lost for awhile. Sometimes she missed things. Important things.

She was unsteady on her feet when she tried to walk, but that was normal. She let them both slip an arm around her to help her back to the annex. It seemed easier than trying to pick one of them. They bickered all the way there, but she'd learned to tune them out.

\---

"Let's see your arm," said Jake. He made an abrupt gesture for Ezekiel to lay it down on the table.

Obediently, and with a small wince, Ezekiel held out his injured wrist. He was a lot of things, but he wasn't particularly stoic when it came to pain. Cassandra reached out and touched his shoulder sympathetically.

"Doesn't look too bad," Jake said, as he – gently, moreso than he usually seemed capable of – twisted and rotated it. "I'd say you're gonna live."

As if they'd planned it, their eyes shot up together, meeting hers with poorly-concealed expressions of guilt on their faces. Ezekiel would tease her relentlessly on purpose about it. Jake always just seemed uncomfortable. When it was an accident, though, somehow it was different. She swallowed and then coughed politely.

"Can we help?" she asked, to direct their attention away from her and back onto the real problem.

"Some ice, maybe," Jake said, shrugging one shoulder. "Try not to move it much for awhile, if he can handle that."

"So no video games?"

"Yeah, and your hands gotta stay out of everyone's pockets for awhile, too," Jake muttered.

Cassandra nudged him, before Ezekiel could quip back. "Maybe you should have been a doctor."

He smirked as he let go of Ezekiel's wrist, eliciting a wince and a loud, potentially exaggerated groan.

"Maybe... not that kind of doctor," she said, laughing. She patted Ezekiel's shoulder again.

\---

Later, when Colonel Baird had gone out and Jenkins was busy and the annex was quiet, Cassandra found Jake sitting on the floor between two rows of shelves, leaning against the wall with a leather-bound book in his lap.

"What are you reading?" she asked, putting on the brightest smile she had as she approached him.

"Like you care." He didn't even look up.

"I do care," Cassandra said. For once, she let it show that it hurt. "We're going to be working together for a long time. We can at least try to be nice to each other."

"Or, you can go do… whatever it is you do when we're not out there risking our necks, and I can sit here and read. Quietly. In peace."

"Why do you help me when I'm getting lost in my own head and then ignore me when I'm really here?" she asked.

"Look, I told you already," he muttered, without looking up at her. Like he was afraid of what she might see if he did. "I like you. I can work with you. Doesn't mean I'm ever gonna trust you."

"But… you do," she said softly. "When we're out there, when you need my help, you do trust me."

"Keep telling yourself that. Maybe someday it'll come true." When he finally glanced up at her, he had a startled look in his eyes, like he hadn't expected those particular words to come out of his mouth. She hadn't expected them, either.

Carefully, as if she was afraid of what might happen if she moved too quickly, she lowered herself to the floor beside him. At first she left space between them, but then she inched closer to peer down at the colorful pages of the open book in his lap. He shrugged one shoulder, uncomfortable, but didn't say a word.

"Can I see?" she asked. He tilted the book towards her. When she tried cautiously leaning her head against his shoulder, he didn't say anything. She took that to mean it was allowed. Maybe not welcome, but allowed. With her cheek pressed against his jacket, she pretended to silently read the words on the page, but she wasn't trying to focus very much. She was tired, and their lives were rarely _quiet_.

Ezekiel found them a few minutes later. He played it off as if it was an accident - walking past the row of shelves and then doubling back when he saw them - but Cassandra knew better by now. Without asking permission, because he never did that, he slid down the wall on Jake's other side. He was still holding a cloth-wrapped ice-pack Jake had put together for him. Once he was seated, he let his wrist rest lightly over his knee.

"Hi," Cassandra said, when no one else seemed to want to break the silence.

"Hi," Ezekiel replied. She could hear the smirk in his voice, the way she could taste colors sometimes.

"Look," Jake said, making a face. A long-suffering, unhappy kind of face. "Look. I never asked for one of you to be here, let alone two of you."

"Well, here we are," said Ezekiel.

"Here you are." Jake sighed.

"And what are you gonna do about it?" Ezekiel popped a hard candy from his pocket into his mouth. He reached over Jake to offer one to Cassandra, but she shook her head.

At first Jake tried to shrink back, but then he sighed again, seemed to give up and just let them do what they want. "I didn't know either of you were interested in the early development of Egyptian pottery-making techniques," he said. He propped up the book in his lap.

"I'm not. I'm bored already," said Ezekiel. As if to contradict himself, he deliberately stretched out his legs and folded his arms behind his head, leaning half against the wall and half against Jake.

"But if you're the one telling us about them…" Cassandra prompted, peering up at Jake from his shoulder. She wondered about what Ezekiel had said before, about Jake being jealous. She wondered if it was true. She wondered about kissing his cheek, but she could save that for another day. She still had enough of those left. Other days.

Jake let out a little angry huff of breath. His shoulders and his brow tightened at the same time, and Cassandra thought he was about to say something rude. Ruder than usual. Then suddenly he relaxed, and he started reading aloud. 

After awhile, he shifted so that Cassandra was resting more comfortably against his shoulder.

Cassandra thought: there were worse places and worse people. If this was all there was, all there was ever going to be, it wasn't that bad. She could live with this.


End file.
